Six Percent
Not being from Massachusetts, this hasn't even been on my radar. But a special election in that state to fill a House seat is worthy of some attention. Because a very, very high name recognition Democrat with massive national party support in the bluest state in America managed to beat a complete unknown Republican.
MA-5 has been called, and it’s looking like a narrow 5-point Tsongas win. That’s closer than all the public polls and it showed Ogonowski’s momentum was all upside the entire campaign.
This was always an uphill battle. MA-5 voted by 17 points for John Kerry in 2004. After 2006, I’m not sure there’s a district anywhere in America that Democratic that’s represented by a Republican.
But there is a clear way forward for the Republican Party out of tonight. It’s one that we didn’t have last night. Or last month. Or a year ago.
It’s simple: the change message works. America is anti-Washington, anti-Congress, and anti-corruption. When that’s where Republicans are, they win. Jim Ogonowski showed us that. Maybe not in an overwhelmingly Democratic district like MA-5. But what about in a +7 Democrat district? Or in purple seats?
Nor do we need the usual suspects to deliver this message. You don’t need to recruit a risk-averse State Senator who talks to his consultants and waits for “his time” to run. All you need is a plain-spoken veteran with an extraordinary life story. We need more citizen-candidates like Jim Ogonowski. We need them to pick off Democrats in blue and purple seats. We need them as primary challengers to corrupt incumbents. In “safe” Democrat-held districts, we need to run people who can get 45% of the vote, and then be in a position to finish the job in 2010. In 2006, the average second-time Democratic challenger who won received 43% of the vote their last time out.
As Patrick Ruffini points out, MyDD called the results "not good." No they aren't. The Influence Peddler points out what the challenger ran on:
Why is this so significant? Because Ogonowski ran a race against Congress, against illegal immigration, and against corruption. According to Democrats in Washington, he should have been defeated badly. After all, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid argue that Congress' low ratings are due to dissatisfaction with President Bush's war, and the American people are with them on the issues. Pelosi and Reid say that when people come out to vote, they'll vote with the Democrats — whom they allegedly agree with on the issues.
This is a very big deal. The conventional wisdom - as reported by the firmly-in-the-pocket MSM - is that Republicans are doomed in 2008. This result says otherwise. If the CW was correct, Niki Tsongas should have walked to this victory. Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy and other national figures campaigned for her. This should have been a walk over an unknown, under-funded candidate from a putatively loathed party. Whoops.
Six points in the bluest state in the union is a defeat for the Democrats - if the opposition stays focused. Time to kick it up, folks.
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Blue Crab Boulevard » Going On Offense — Thursday, 18 October , 2007 @ 5:59 am
By Mwalimu Daudi, Wednesday, 17 October , 2007 @ 6:04 am
It’s simple: the change message works. America is anti-Washington, anti-Congress, and anti-corruption. When that’s where Republicans are, they win. Jim Ogonowski showed us that.
True. And its also true that the current Democrat-controlled Congress provides a target-rich environment when it comes to fighting corruption, hyper-partisanship, and ineffective governing. Finally, it is a staple of MSM reporting to declare the GOP politically dead every election cycle (it’s practically a tradition).
But will the GOP overcome its decades-long habit of cringing and ducking when faced with criticism from the MSM and their Democrat pets? As Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit pointed ot, the Republican campaign slogan in 2006 seemed to be: Vote Republican - We’re Not As Bad As You Think.
By feeblemind, Wednesday, 17 October , 2007 @ 7:15 am
I think Mwalimu is pretty close to the mark in his last paragraph. Repubs could have mitigated their losses last year had they just campaigned smarter. Dems beat them with nothing. While the Dems campaign anyway they want to, the repubs seem to campaign by rules dictated to them from the dems and the MSM.